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Taiwan and Australia are non-Parties to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH Convention). However, as the first two non-Parties in the East Asia region, both have incorporated the spirit and letter of the UCH Convention into their respective domestic laws, with minor exceptions to fit into their respective historical and cultural contexts, as well as their administrative and judicial settings. This paper traces and compares the very different origins of these two pieces of UCH specific domestic legislation. A comparative analysis is also made of the structure and content, similarities and differences of each piece of legislation as well as deviations between them and between the UCH Convention. The paper argues that the Taiwanese and Australian experience demonstrates models for the successful incorporation of the UCH Convention for States striving for the preservation, protection and management of UCH.

Green power schemes, operating outside of government mandatory renewable energy schemes, provide a means by which electricity consumers are assured that by paying an additional premium on top of ordinary electricity prices the energy supplier will source an equivalent amount of electricity generated from renewable sources. The schemes do not provide renewable energy per se to consumers but give the consumer confidence the energy supplier will source an equivalent amount of energy from renewable sources. This article examines green power in Australia and its accreditation scheme. It examines the origin and growth of GreenPower in Australia. Rules relating to eligibility for accreditation under the GreenPower scheme are then examined. It is argued that a significant benefit of this scheme is the way it incorporates wider environmental and sustainability concepts because of its requirements for environmental impact assessment for projects seeking accreditation. The process of accreditation, ongoing verification and monitoring of this voluntary scheme has had considerable success in ensuring consumer confidence has been maintained. Provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA) provide a backup legislative sanction should the mechanisms of the GreenPower scheme fail, but these powers have rarely been used, attesting to the success of the GreenPower scheme.

This paper seeks to question the prevailing orthodoxy on the need for the ‘package deal’ on the proposed international legally-binding instrument under UNCLOS on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction to address marine genetic resources, including questions relating to access and benefit sharing. Through an examination of key documents and reports prepared over the past two decades, the first part of this paper will show that there has been little hard commercial evidence brought forward during debates at the United Nations to justify the inclusion of the marine genetic resources issue within the ‘package deal’. In light of that analysis, the second part of the paper will then go on to offer some initial thoughts on the various options for regulating access and benefit sharing in relation to marine genetic resources in areas beyond national jurisdiction that have been floated during the initial phase of negotiations. In particular, the second part of this paper examines the possible elements of a draft text of an international legally binding instrument set out in the chairs non-paper considered at the 3rd session of the Preparatory Committee established by General Assembly Resolution 69/292. The paper does not seek to trace the extent to which aspects of the chairs non-paper ultimately were contained in the Prep Comm’s final report to the United Nations General Assembly in late 2017. These negotiations are still ongoing and nothing definitive can be read into what was present or absent from that report. Instead, this analysis highlights which proposed elements of the international legally binding instrument would be the preferable outcome from these negotiations in light of the lack of evidence of commercial interest in marine genetic resources in areas beyond national jurisdiction.